


Colorado Hold 'Em

by ShippenStand



Series: SGA Vegas fics [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vegas, BAMF Women, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippenStand/pseuds/ShippenStand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If asked, Evan Lorne would say he liked gate travel and fighting aliens, and misses everything about the SGC except maybe the food. And the bureaucracy. He definitely doesn't miss the bureaucracy, even if it's probably the reason he walked out with his discharge papers instead of a court-martial. Of course, he can't say any of that, even though his hot new training officer at the Las Vegas PD, Laura Cadman, would sure like to know where he got his combat experience.  But when something he's pretty sure belongs back in the Pegasus galaxy appears on a casino video monitor, he realizes he's got a couple of things he needs to tell her, and aliens are just the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colorado Hold 'Em

**Author's Note:**

> I have written the Vegas universe is a bit more sexist than our own, but otherwise this is canon-compliant, set just previous to the episode Vegas. Thanks to [gelbes_gilatier](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gelbes_gilatier/pseuds/gelbes_gilatier/works?fandom_id=70) for the inspiring art, and Tesserae for the lightening beta.

“Okay,” Lorne said, looking at the young faces. “They think they have us pinned down.”

“They _do_ have us pinned down!”

“Seriously, McDonnell? That kind of defeatist attitude means you get shot. SWOT, people.”

“This isn’t the SWAT team!”

Lorne tried to keep his frustration out of his voice. “Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.”

Jefferson groused, “The biggest threat is those goons out there.”

Lorne carefully did not sigh. “Strengths: Torres, you and McDonnell are bigger than any of them. Weaknesses: at this point they’re fanned out with multiple lines of fire on us, and we’re in one place. Opportunities: More cover to the left, and that girder over our heads.”

“That’s 12 feet up! I even I can’t jump that,” Torres whispered.

 _Threats,_ Lorne thought, _my team’s short-sightedness._

“I’m smaller than you guys. Torres and McDonnell can throw me, and I can get height advantage and shoot over their cover. They’ll be freaked out when that happens and Jefferson can scoot right, then slide down that wall to get behind them. I’ll pin them down from up top, then Torres can go left and get behind that crate, then flank them on the other side. McDonnell keeps firing from here, top and sides, so they think most of us are still behind this box. Got it?”

They looked at him for a long second, and then Jefferson said, “Are you shitting us?”

Lorne held his gaze. “No.” He cracked a grin. “Are you up for it?”

“You are one crazy MF.”

“How do we throw you?”

“Cradle your hands, I’ll crouch in the middle, and jump when you get me about shoulder high.”

“I thought you were Air Force, not circus.”

“Just try it. And nobody makes a dwarf tossing joke. You know what you’re going to do, right? Repeat it back.” They did, and his team crouched down, grasping each others’ wrists to make a platform a foot above the ground. Lorne stepped on, staying low, a hand on Torres head for balance, glancing up toward the girder he planned to grab.

“Shit, Lorne, you’re heavy. Jefferson, help.”

“Ready? On three.” He counted, and on three they rose and he jumped, and he caught the girder and swung himself up. There was other steel in his line of sight, but he could handle that. He saw their opponents open mouthed, wondering what had just happened, and before they could bring their weapons up again, he fired. Two neat head shots. Two to go.

A few shots came his way, but one went wide and another pinged a steel beam between him and the shooter. He fired again, but they had adapted to the new threat. Torres let out a shot over the top of their cover, and then the side, not trying to hit, but to give the illusion of more than one person. Lorne could see Jefferson and McDonnell working their way down opposite sides of the warehouse, and Jefferson made it first, taking out the remaining two before getting hit by… Oh, crap. By McDonnell.

The lights came on full, and a voice over the loudspeaker said, “That’ll do, gentlemen.” The downed opponents and Jefferson got to their feet, comparing paint splashes. The ones with head shots took off their helmets to view the splatter. “Cadet Lorne, please join me in the observation deck.”

Lorne was level with the glassed-in observation booth, but there were no doors on this side where it jutted out to see the training room. He could see the blue uniforms of the tactics training team through the window, along with several people in suits, and the long braids of the psych evaluator for the trainees. Crap, not again.

***

He wasn’t quite sure how he’d made it, but here he was at the first muster after graduation from the police academy with the other rookies, in an unfamiliar uniform, missing his tac vest and vaguely annoyed every time the night stick brushed his thigh. They all stood facing a line of older officers who would become their field training officers. Lorne caught the questioning glances some were giving him. With the threads of gray in his hair and the creases around his eyes, he knew he looked more like he ought to be on their side of the room. 

The looks didn’t scare him. Jaffa were more intimidating than these guys, and they were kittens next to a Goa’uld with a ribbon weapon. Lorne swallowed against the memories. The SGC was behind him, taken from him, had cashiered him out with a discharge that was good on paper. If SG-1 had done what he did, they’d have been given a pass, but not so for the second of SG22. He took a deep breath. Zen mind. Beginners mind. This was like stepping through the ‘gate into a new culture. Enough cops were former military that it should be okay. It should be okay, but all his experience told him it wasn’t.

He scanned the room, wondering which one of them would be his training officer. A movement toward the back caught his eye. Behind all the uniforms was a woman in plainclothes with reddish hair pulled back in a pony tail. She leaned against the back wall looking at her phone, occasionally glancing up. Her eyes were large and her lips were full, and he blinked away the distraction. Then the role call began alphabetically, but he was skipped. As the other new partners left the room, he eased himself into parade rest and remained on the line. He didn’t like the looks of this. As the room thinned out he could see the woman more clearly. She had a badge on the belt of her jeans, but no visible weapon. Perhaps it was in a shoulder holster under the leather jacket. 

He tried not to look at her, but as the door banged shut behind the last rookie he glanced around. The captain, a sun-browned man heading toward swivel-chair spread, exchanged an unreadable glance with her, and she slipped her phone into her pocket. 

“Officer Lorne,” the captain said, part sigh, and part _what am I going to do with you_.

“Sir.”

“We’ve never had anyone so completely blow the training stats. We get a lot of ex-military, but we’ve never gotten anything like you.”

Lorne didn’t know what to think. “I’m sorry, sir?”

The captain snorted. “Don’t apologize. We’re just worried that if we put you in the field, you won’t be able to dial it back.” The captain half-sat on the corner of the table. “You passed your psych evals fine, but your performance… And your service record is so heavily redacted, we don’t know what you did, and you wouldn’t tell us a damn thing if we asked.”

Lorne was confused. His service record wasn’t redacted. It said he had a boring assignment in Deep Space Telemetry. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“It’s not the military.”

Lorne caught an expression cross the face of the woman, pinched and less pretty, but appealing for being honest. “If I passed my psych evals, why are you worried about me being able to dial it back?”

“Well, if you’re going to be frank, so am I.” The captain raised his hand, looking like he wanted to scrub it down his face, but caught himself and touched his tie as if to adjust it. “We expected you to wash out. Not only did you exceed every top mark, but you kept expecting the other trainees to keep up. Some people think your cushy job was a cover. You don’t get those reflexes under a mountain. That kind of training probably included training in handling a psych eval.”

Lorne wasn’t sure how to answer that. He glanced again at the woman. She wasn’t familiar, and she wasn’t looking at him. He profile was striking and symmetrical, and he wanted to sketch it.

“So take Detective Cadman, here,” the captain began. With those words she stiffened slightly. “Ex-Marine, if you can believe that.” Lorne was surprised, but tried not to show it. Women in the Marines were rarer than women in the police force. “Her service record says she is an explosives expert, but her last assignment was in Colorado, too.” 

Lorne didn’t know what to say, so he waited. Finally the captain said, “I’m not a curious man. I do know that Detective Cadman tested out of beat cop duty faster than anyone before her, man or woman, and she’s a pretty good detective.” There was a tone in that last part, as if he wanted to add _for a woman_. “Something tells me you’ll do the same. You won’t be happy as a beat cop, and I’m afraid you’ll get the department sued. You’ll be a great addition to the force, but you make a lousy rookie.”

It seemed to require some response, but he wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be. You’ll be spending your the first half of you probationary months with her. She’ll get you settled, and then you’ll do the second on the streets, like any rookie. You can’t be a detective or SWAT without regular uniform experience. If I put you out there now, you may not remember that Las Vegas isn’t really a war zone.”

“Yes, sir,” Lorne said, keeping the question out of his voice. He let himself have a half-second of regret that reporting to her meant no way to ask her out.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” the captain said, standing up and nodding to Detective Cadman on his way out. She watched him leave, turning her gaze to Lorne only after the door closed. 

She looked away, nodded to herself. “So.” She let the word hang there when Lorne didn’t answer. Eventually she took a breath and said, “So now it’s my job to civilize you, Batman.”

“Batman?”

“It’s what they call you, your fellow cadets. Or so I’m told.”

“I’ve never heard it before.” No one had said it to his face. Not even in his hearing in the locker room. _Batman?_

“Oh, yes. Batman is the summary of a whole host of things they say about you. My job is to make you a cop, not some special forces superhero. I know the type.”

Lorne didn’t understand the bitterness he heard in her voice. “If you say so.”

“Your captain says so, and mine. Come on upstairs.” She walked to the door without looking back, so he followed, not stopping himself from looking at her curves. He tried to distract himself by thinking about getting used the weight of the belt with its holster moving freely and not strapped to his thigh. She led him to the public lobby and up a set of stairs, brightly lit with large windows. Lorne tensed, his mouth dry. How could they secure this place with all that glass?

As soon as the thought hit, he stopped. He was midway up the stairs, looking out into the bright afternoon at the cars, the road, the _normal_. He was brought back by Cadman’s voice, steady and without a hint of flirtation. “You coming, rookie?” Lorne shook himself turned and took the steps by twos to catch up. “You okay?” she asked. He assured her he was, but she glanced at him once and then at the windows and said, “We’re not likely to face a siege situation here.” He wasn’t sure how to read her voice. Reassuring? Dismissive? That bitter edge was still there. He nodded, and she said, “And that’s why they assigned you to me.”

Her tone this time was clear: conversation over. But she’d known immediately what he’d been thinking, and that was both comforting and troubling. He followed her down a corridor to a row of offices, glancing in each one as unobtrusively as possible. Most had people working at computers. One was empty, Johnny Cash looking out from a poster on the back wall. She turned in a door and gestured to a chair as she closed the door and sat behind the desk. He took off his hat and sat down, reminding himself to move the night stick out of the way. He supposed he’d get used to it, like he would to having a woman as a supervisor. First day jitters. Beginner’s mind. This was less weird than learning about the gates in the first place.

She looked at him for a long moment. He liked her eyes, but her expression was forbidding. “Ma’am,” he said. 

“I’m not sure what to do with you. It’s not like I work a beat, and I wasn’t asked if I could use you.”

“What _do_ you do?”

“Usually _women’s issues_ ,” she said, sneering the words. “And sometimes I serve as a decoy for prostitution and sex crimes cases.” She leaned forward. “And now it seems like I get to put the woman’s touch on you.” She sat back, frowning. “You’re good, and you’re not too twitchy. Why’d you leave?”

He blinked at the sudden change of subject. “I can’t talk about it.”

“I know you’re not supposed to, but it’s not like I’m some random person on the street.”

“I should be fine.”

She straightened up her head, turning toward her computer. “Like the streets of Las Vegas are Disney World.”

Lorne felt himself blushing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“ 

She cut him off and turned back to face him, placing her palms on the desk. “If you ever try to protect me instead of doing your job, I will find a compelling excuse to throw you out of here on your ass.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The answer was out before he had time to think. He took a breath. This was going to be much harder than riding along in a patrol car. He went for the only question he could ask. “Can you tell me what cases you’re working on, and how I might help?”

“Frst we need to take a drive around town. You need to know all the places where the real stuff goes down. Drug sales, prostitution, all that.” She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You think you know this town, but not like police do. Don’t worry. It was my first rookie ride, too.”

She stood and picked up a no-nonsense backpack. Lorne stood, too. She nodded once and opened the door, holding it for him to go through first, and he had to fight his desire to hold it for her. They walked back the way they had come, and she stopped at one of the offices. Lorne glanced in to see the Johnny Cash poster. “Hey, Sheppard. Heard you found another one.”

“Looks like it. This’ll be the fifth.” Lorne startled at the voice, the layers over a once-familiar and laid-back drawl. He looked at the man, who was standing by his desk looking at a spread of photos. Sheppard sported two days of beard and a rumpled, untucked shirt, lines around his eyes from squinting into the sun. It was a far cry from the hotshot helo pilot from Afghanistan.

“Major?” he said.

Sheppard looked up slowly. “Lorne?”

“Yes, sir.”

“About that,” Sheppard said. “No _sir_ s.”

Cadman looked questioningly between them. Lorne said, “We were both stationed in Afghanistan.”

“How did I not know you were ex-military?” Cadman said to Sheppard, but the way her glance rested on his appearance answered the question.

“Air Force,” Sheppard said. “Turns out I’m not the military type.”

Lorne didn’t contradict him. Sheppard had been a very good officer, if not so great with following orders. 

Cadman simply said, “Okay,” and nodded toward the pictures on Sheppard’s desk. “What do you have?”

“Another one of those strange bodies.”

“Another? Strange how?”

Lorne leaned over to look, and a mummified body stared back out of the printed picture, dry lips pulled back over perfect, unaged teeth. This wasn’t the desert drying out a body, because the teeth would not still have that perfect enamel. The next picture showed the chest wound, and Lorne recognized the shape of a hand print with claws. He’d never been to Pegasus, but all of the SGC had been briefed on the Wraith. If the Wraith were here, that was bad. He needed to call this in, but there was no way to do it now. 

“Huh,” Cadman said.

“Huh, what?” Sheppard said.

Cadman reached back and twirled her hand through her pony tail, lifting it into a bun before letting it loose. Lorne hadn’t known her half an hour, but the gesture looked uncharacteristic. “That’s just weird.”

“Yeah, never seen anything like it.” He glanced up at Lorne. Lorne shrugged, but Sheppard’s look was sharp, almost searching. Lorne put on his best innocent expression.

“Well,” Cadman said. “I’m taking young Officer Lorne here on his tour of the underbelly. Good luck with this one.”

“Sure,” Sheppard said. “Welcome to the LVPD, Lorne.” Sheppard didn’t offer a hand, just turned back to the photos. 

“Thanks,” Lorne said to his profile, and Sheppard raised a hand in a vague wave. Lorne followed Cadman out of the room. “I need to—“ he started, but she cut off Lorne with a look, and neither spoke again until they got to the car, a typical unmarked sedan. Cadman put her backpack in the trunk and walked to the driver’s side door, and looked at Lorne over the hood a long moment before getting in.

As they pulled out of the parking lot she said, “That body spook you? You seem kind of antsy.”

“It was pretty weird,” he said.

“True, that,” she answered. “Let’s go take the nickel tour.”

They drove, heading into areas Lorne knew only by reputation. You couldn’t live in Las Vegas without absorbing the schizophrenia of suburban tract houses, Casino glitz, and dumpy, cheap hotels and trailers, but the nickel tour seemed to take in streets that he’d never known existed. Cadman narrated, gave histories and current stats. Lorne took it all in, listening the chatter on the radio when she fell silent. He tried not to show his impatience. He didn’t know if anyone at the SGC would talk with him after how things ended up, but they needed to know there was a Wraith on Earth. 

***  
They’d been driving around for four hours, pulling boring traffic stops, with a coffee break and lunch in there for good measure. Lorne looked at his watch and wondered how much longer, when a big white Lincoln blew past them, and Lorne looked at Cadman as she put on the party lights and pulled the car over, but she just smirked. It was the sixth minor moving violation, as if she was looking for them. Toward the end of the day, Lorne was tired and antsy, both. He needed to call the SGA, and wanted to do it during regular business hours, when he’d have a better chance of getting someone’s attention. He heaved a sigh and looked at his watch. 1430.

‘You got somewhere to be?” She cocked her head and he got out of the car. He touched the left rear fender of the Lincoln with all five fingers to leave a clear set of prints—he’d forgotten that once and caught no end of grief from Cadman about it—and then walked up to the window.

“License and registration, ma’am,” Lorne said, looking at the underdressed woman in the car. She had bleached white hair and a halter top he could look down without trying. In fact, she seemed to be hoping that her breasts would get her out of a ticket. “You have a brake light out.”

Flustered, she reached for her purse, and Lorne put his hand on his weapon, just in case she was reaching for something else. She keeping a stream of _I’m sorry. I can’t believe it_ , and a muttered _You’ve got to be shitting me, brake light._ She jerked her hand up rapidly, and Lorne had his weapon out and trained on her before he recognized a bright lime-green wallet. The woman’s eyes and mouth all formed perfectly round Os of surprise. He pulled the weapon back and pointed it up, his fingers clearly far from the trigger, quickly flipping on the safety. “Sorry, ma’am. You startled me.” He holstered his gun and took out his citation book. When he glanced up, she still hadn’t moved, the comic expression frozen on her face. He said, “License and registration.”

She seemed to recover herself and opened the wallet, reaching for the license, and Lorne let himself relax. She held it out, but not all the way out the window, and as Lorne reached for it, she gunned the engine.

He didn’t even think. His hand shot out and grabbed the end of her open window, and he swung himself up on the roof of the car, and only when he landed on the metal did he realize just what he’d gotten himself into. The woman panicked and slammed on the brakes, and his feet continued the swing around to the hood of the car, and he slid, coming to a stop spreadeagled just off center, looking directly into her face through the windshield. He jumped down and stuck his entire torso in the window, pinning her to the seat while reaching awkwardly with his left hand to cut the engine.

When he leaned back, Cadman was on the other side of the car, weapon drawn, held pointing up, just to the left side of her head. Now he knew she was a Marine, because he’d seen men go into that stance like they were stepping out the front door—balanced, relaxed, ready to move or aim in any direction. 

The woman in the car had started to cry, babbling in a fast high-pitched voice. _Not my fault. He made me._ “Detective,” Lorne said, not taking his eyes off the woman in the car. 

“Come out and keep your hands where we can see them,” Cadman called. Lorne put his hand on his weapon, and opened the door with his left hand, keeping the door between him and her, in case she was armed. She got out of the car, arms up, and Lorne quickly turned her to face the car and cuffed her, fumbling for a moment because he was more used to zip ties and uncooperative detainees. Cadman said, “Ma’am, we want to search the vehicle. Your attempted escape gives us probable cause.”

Lorne pulled the woman back slightly and turned her toward the car. Cadman walked over to the driver’s side, blocked him. “It’s not a regular cruiser, Lorne. We can’t leave her alone. Sit her on the curb, and I’ll watch her. You search.”

Lorne nodded and let Cadman take the woman’s arm. He gave a glance over the interior, but went for the easiest thing first and popped the trunk. There was a suitcase, which he opened. It was full of bundled cash. “We’re gonna need some help on this one,” he said.

Cadman glanced up. “Call it in.” He started to the unmarked car, and she called his name. He turned. “Don’t do that again,” she said. “You do know you’re not really Batman, right?”

There was the briefest hint of a smile beneath her words, and he flushed.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmured, carefully keeping the answering grin off his face.

***

Lorne went straight into his kitchen and opened a beer. First day on the job, and he was already getting home late. He kicked off his shoes, and flopped down on the couch. The booking process had been instructive, to say the least, and when he was finally free to go, it was too late to join the rest of his cadet class for the celebratory beer. It was probably too late to call the SGC, but maybe an email would work. The problem was what to say on an unsecure line.

`From: evan.lorne17@gmail.com`  
`To: eraimi4467@dst.usaf.mil`  
`Date: 12-15-1998`  
`Subject: Odd sighting Please READ`

`Dear Col. Raimi,`

`I hope you read this mail. I know I didn’t leave under the best of circumstances, and you have no good reason to trust me, but I saw something today you need to know about. I’ve joined the Las Vegas police, and I saw a picture that looked just like something we were briefed on. Fourth victim. Mummified.`

Lorne wasn’t sure how to sign it, so he went with `Sincerely, E. Lorne`.

He pressed Send, and hoped his former commander would even open his message. He took a long sip of his beer. He didn’t have high hopes.

***

Lorne walked into the locker room to change into his uniform, wondering if Cadman was going to bore him with traffic stops again today. Before he got three steps in, someone yelled, “Hey Batman!” and another voice started the old theme song. Cadman hadn’t been joking. He walked to his locker, and someone said, “Nice move on that bust yesterday.” Another voice said, “I heard it was more like Spiderman.”

The guy next to his locker said, “Yeah, I thought they were lying about you.”

“I was just stupid, I guess,” Lorne said. There were more comments, but Lorne put his head down, tried to answer politely, and let it blow over. He didn’t have high hopes on that score either.

He walked up to Cadman’s office, passing Sheppard’s closed door. He knocked and opened Cadman’s door without waiting. She was on the phone. “Just put me through! It’s important! I told you how I got this number.” She glanced up to see Lorne at her door, and held up a hand, so he stepped outside and closed the door behind him, wondering what it was about. After a few minutes she opened the door, backpack on her shoulder and thunder in her face. “Let’s go.” 

Lorne didn’t say anything, just fell into step behind her, and she led them, without speaking, all the way to the garage with the unmarked cars. 

She didn’t say a word as she pulled into the light morning traffic, just radioed in that they were out, and in five minutes pulled over a car with Montana plates for an illegal U-turn. Lorne glanced at her, sighed, and opened up his door. “Warning or ticket?” he asked before stepping out.

Her hands gripped the wheel, her mouth a thin line. “Warning. Remind them this isn’t the wide open range.”

Warning issued, he climbed back into the unmarked, and she pulled away from the curb without acknowledging him. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed that the silent treatment would give him too much time to stew over whether Col. Raimi would even read his email. He replayed his last days at the SGC, the rounds of debriefing, the threats of court martial, and the final _more in sorrow than in anger_ from Gen. O’Neill. He’d lied to get back through the gate, to try to undo the damage he’d done on his first command mission. Cadman broke up his ruminations with traffic stops, but rarely spoke, and her silence became more interesting to him than worrying at old wounds. After the third stop she called them in for coffee. He bought, they both used the restroom, and when they went back to the car he looked at her over the roof. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I could ask the same thing,” she said.

“I’m just thinking. You’re angry. Are you mad at me for yesterday?”

“What? No. You did scare the hell out of me, but we’ll get a lot of points for that bust. Apparently she’s opening up on a serious gambling case.”

“I thought gambling was legal here.”

“Not all of it,” she said. “Speaking of which, I got a call while you were in the can. I need to make a pit stop.” They got in the car. Whatever it was that was pissing her off seemed to be less of an issue. 

“Where are we going?” 

“Flying Horse Casino,” she said. “And here, not-so-young officer Lorne, is where you start to learn the rest of the underbelly of Las Vegas. Most of us moonlight.”

“Moonlight how?”

“At your level, casino security. At my level, higher-level casino security. It’s amazing what I can learn in a pair of heels and a low-cut dress.”

Lorne didn’t want to picture it. He’d managed to put his attraction to Cadman on the back burner, but the image didn’t help. “I suppose so.”

“But I also do a lot of analysis of video, looking for card counters, finding out if people the casinos want out are wanted by the police or feds for any reason. Mutually beneficial.”

“So where are we going?”

“Flying Horse has someone who is winning a bit too much, but it doesn’t look like a card counter. They want to know if I can see anything.”

“While we’re on duty?” Lorne asked.

“You want to make any more traffic stops?” she smirked. “My job is to show you what real LVPD work is like. This is part of it. Nothing we’re doing here is against regs.”

They pulled into the Flying Horse parking lot. This was one of the smaller casinos, with less glitz and floor show and more serious tables. The decoration ran to pegasus images and Greek columns, more tasteful than Caesar’s Palace if not quite up to the the serious luxe of the Wynn. It was early enough that the more touristy casinos would be quiet, and this one was, but it was still more crowded than Lorne expected. Cadman was greeted with friendly voices from the house crew as they walked in, and a few glanced at Lorne with curiosity. “I guess you don’t usually have a uniform with you,” he said.

“Nope.” She walked straight through to an Employees Only door and waved at the camera. The lock buzzed and she went through, holding it for Lorne. The contrast of the front rooms to the tiled and beige back office was striking, but unsurprising. It was almost as claustrophobic as under the mountain, with no windows and alarmed doors. She led them to a room with banks of video screens from the security feeds. “Hey, Bradford.”

The man who turned around didn’t fit the name at all. He looked like one of the local Native Americans. “Laura. Thanks. Who’s your friend?”

“Newly minted officer Lorne, late of the Air Force. Evan Lorne, meet Bradford Cheney. No relation to our former Vice President.”

Lorne was thinking that he hadn’t even known her first name until now, but he answered when the man reached out a sun-browned hand, the crease of a smile showed under his short, silvered hair. “Air Force, huh? I was Army, and I guess you know Laura was a Marine.”

“Emphasis on the _was_ , Bradford.”

“No one’s ever not a Marine. _Semper Fi_ and all that.”

“Yeah, when the corps _Fi_ s me back, I’ll reconsider.” Lorne heard the bitterness again, and wondered again how she’d left the Marines. She said, “So what do you have for me?”

Cheney turned to a computer and brought up some video files of a poker table with six heavy-set men in sharp-looking dress shirts around it. They were typical gamblers except for a white-haired, Goth-looking guy across from the dealer, and Cheney pointed at him. “That’s the one. He’s been winning, but the pattern isn’t card counting. Maybe you could watch this and figure it out? We need a reason to ban him.”

“No you don’t,” Cadman said. “It’s a private establishment.”

Cheney scowled at her. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you something plausible,” Cadman said, and took a rolling chair. Cheney slid over to another console and she pulled up to the computer, leaving Lorne to stand and watch over her shoulder. Something about the Goth struck him as familiar, but he couldn’t place him. He’d remember someone who looked like that, so he assumed the get-up was meant as a distraction, but he still couldn’t figure it out. After five minutes he got himself a chair, and watched the feeds. “No tells,” Cadman said. “None.”

“I know,” Cheney said. “I watched that guy for hours and he’s got alligator blood.”

They watched for almost an hour until the game broke up. Something about how the man stood, and then a facial expression, a move of the mouth, and Lorne had another flash of familiarity, frustrated that he couldn’t pull it into focus.

“Has he been a regular?” Cadman finally said.

“Pretty much. I think he may be outgrowing us, if you know what I mean.”

“A high-stakes room in a carpet joint?”

Cheney nodded. “Any chance you can come in tonight?”

“Sure,” Cadman said, getting up and looking at Lorne. She cocked her head to the door.

“Nice to meet you,” Lorne said. 

Cheney waved at him. “See you around.”

They walked through the sparse crowd, and said nothing until they reached the car. “Back to traffic stops?” Cadman said.

“Do you do that a lot?”

“Like I said, most of us moonlight.”

“Yeah, but on the job?”

She shrugged. “That was legit. We were checking to see if their guy was wanted on any other charges.”

“Right.”

“If you have a problem with it, I won’t ask you to help me on this. There’s cash in it for you, and I know what your salary is like. It’s a step down from an Air Force Major.”

For some reason that reference to his former rank hit Lorne. Police training had been military enough that he could pretend, but being at the bottom end of the ranks was a tough transition. Losing the galaxy and the stargates on top of that? At least in the field, they’d been eating MREs for a good reason.

It must have shown on his face, but Cadman misinterpreted. “Too good for it, huh?”

“What? No! It’s just…” Lorne trailed off. He couldn’t really explain to her just how different this world was, how odd it felt just staying on one planet, much less in one city. “What do you want me to do?”

She gave him a hard look, then flicked an eyebrow as if coming to a decision. “Come in and play. You’ll use the house’s money, so any winnings get turned back in to them. Distract Mr. Fashion Victim while I try to figure out what he’s doing.”

“My poker playing is strictly barracks.”

“It’ll do. Even if you’re a pigeon, you can’t really lose. It’s the house’s money anyway. Just try to make it look good.”

***

Lorne checked his email when he got home. There was nothing from Col. Raimi. He didn’t send a follow up. He wanted a beer, but he held off. If this was work, better to stay sharp. He changed into jeans and a henley, grabbing a jacket to make it look like he was trying to dress it up. He’d had to blend in on missions with SG22. This was just another mission, with lower stakes.

When he pulled into the Flying Horse, he checked his text messages from Cadman, noting her curt instructions on where to go to pick up his stake. He took a breath and walked in, looking around to see if he could spot the white hair, but he didn’t. He picked up his chips by dropping Cadman’s name and sat down at a low-stakes table where he could see the room, ordering a ginger ale. 

Cadman walked in during his first hand. Lorne was slightly surprised that she wasn’t wearing anything low cut, given her crack about a dress and heels. She wore a red shirt and skinny jeans, her hair down, loose around her shoulders. Lorne caught his breath, surprised, because a low-cut top would have just been dress-up and he could have ignored cleavage. In this outfit she looked like a real person, beautiful and unconscious of it. She hadn’t spotted him, so he kept looking, staring long enough that the dealer rapped his knuckles on the table to get his attention.

Lorne shook his head and went back to the game. He had a pair and the start of a straight, half the pair showing, so he tossed out the fifth card to see what he would get back. “Call,” he said, tossing a chip and glancing at the dealer to use his peripheral vision to watch for the Goth. He also watched the other players to try to find out how to blend in better. 

In his third hand he spotted the white hair threading through the floor. The kid was taller than he’d seemed on video, lean and angular. There were more people than the afternoon, but the crowd seemed to shift around him so that he walked straight to the cage and bought chips. Lorne glanced at his hand. He had a jack of hearts and a two of spades showing. His other cards were a ten of hearts, an eight and another two, both clubs. A low pair. He tossed in the eight, and the dealer laid down a card. Lorne looked at the corner to see another jack of spades this time. He glanced up to locate Cadman before he realized what he had. Two pair. He raised out of habit, and looked to see where Cadman and the Goth had got to. Three other players folded, leaving Lorne facing a man in a bowling shirt and a comb over with an eight and queen of spades showing. They both called, and Lorne won against a pair of queens. He took his chips, about even now with his stake, nodded and said, “I like to spread my luck.” He started to leave and then remembered to tip the dealer. He put down a $20 chip, and received a nod in return. 

When he stood he could see them, Cadman’s red shirt and the white-silver of the Goth’s hair bright against a bank of slot machines. The Goth hesitated a moment and turned his head ever so slightly, chin down. Cadman spotted it and ducked her head toward one of the slots, reaching for the handle. That red shirt was memorable, Lorne thought. She might be a Marine, but she didn’t have his training for field missions.

Thinking of this as a mission helped settle him. The Goth had gone to a table, a higher level one than Lorne had been playing, and there were no bowling shirts here. Like the video this afternoon, the players were crisply dressed, appropriately decorated with gold. One had cuff links with a ruby stone in an ace of hearts. There were two seats open at the table, so Lorne told himself he was a nice guy, a bit of a rube, trying to get into the bigger leagues, putting on his character of earnest farm boy trying to fake it in the big city. The house had staked him enough to at least start at the $500 tables, but he wasn’t sure how long he could last. 

The Goth took the seat across from the dealer, leaving the one at the end open for Lorne. The other three sported pinky rings and shellacked hair. _Goombas_ , Lorne thought, and then realized he’d watched too much of The Sopranos. To his own surprise, and the luck of the cards, Lorne won the first hand with a pair of kings, ace high. He glanced around as he stacked his winnings, trying to get a sense of the other players. One had a whiskey, another a beer, and were grumbling almost good-naturedly, but the Goth had even refused water, sitting silent while the noise of the slots swirled around him. What had been an unusual quiet on the video feeds was an eerie stillness in person. The white hair made him think of the woman with the bleached locks from yesterday, but there was not even the hint of a darker root coming in. By the eyes and skin, he wasn’t albino. 

His first few hands he tried to figure out the tells of the other players. It was a skill he’d needed when meeting the locals on the other side of the gate, looking for clues as to whether the mission would end up a milk run or a hot one, and he’d never used it in poker before. The guy with the heart cufflinks showed nothing when he looked at his cards, but when the dealer had gotten to Lorne, three seats away, his eyebrows would move, up if it was a card he didn’t want, and down if it was. The man in the crisp black shirt with the maroon tie would sip his drink with a card he didn’t like, but like the aces guy, it wasn’t right away. The Goth never made an unnecessary move of any kind. In fact, he barely even looked around. Lorne took the opposite approach, and created series of moves to blind whatever tell he probably had. He’d sip his drink, tap his fingers, let his eyebrows move and added in rattling his ice at what he hoped were random intervals. 

Seven hands in, Lorne was holding his own largely because he was seated at the end and had time to read the other players. The Goth, though was clearly winning, his pile of chips more than twice the size of Lorne’s. Lorne wondered if his method for trying to blind his tells was working, or how the Goth was doing so well. He’d folded twice when Lorne had exceptionally good hands, and he had always known when the aces guy was bluffing, even though he was seated next to him, and the tell didn’t show up until…

It all slammed together in his brain and he glanced up, looking again at the long white hair and glancing at the hand that reached for the chips with its fingerless gloves, gloves to cover the feeding--

The Goth, the _Wraith_ , quietly folded his hand and stood up, putting his chips in a tray.

“That’s it?” said the guy in black. “Middle of a hand and you just fold and take your money? What’s wrong with you?”

Not acknowledging the question, the Wraith scooped his chips into his tray and turned away, heading for the line that stretched away from the cashier’s cage.

Lorne looked up to the Cage, where the Wraith already stood in line to cash out, sorting his chips in the tray. Part of Lorne’s brain thought it was funny that a Wraith would stand in a line like any other gambler, and the other part tried to finish this hand without it looking obvious that he was in a hurry. He took the pot with an inside straight and stood up. “Hang on to my chips for me, will you?” he said to the dealer. The Wraith was getting his money and heading for the door, hurrying. Lorne followed him through the crowd and out to the street, around the corner to the parking lot.

Lorne wanted to act on his instincts, but this wasn’t P-whateverthefuck and he wasn’t armed. He dodged out into the parking structure, keeping a line of cars between him and the Wraith until the Wraith opened a pickup truck door and shot a glance around. Lorne ducked. He needed to get that license number, so he waited until he heard the door slam and stood slowly, expecting to hear the engine start. 

The truck was empty.

Lorne threaded through the cars to get to a spot where he could see the license, but something hit him from behind, hard, and he sprawled. A hand grabbed his shoulder, turning him over as if he weighed nothing, and he found himself on the ground, looking up at the Goth. The disguise was almost perfect, but the way the mouth pulled back over the teeth wasn’t human, and revealed the edge of an appliance that covered the Wraith’s fangs. Lorne kicked up between the legs, a blow that would drop a human, but the Wraith didn’t even notice. Lorne pulled his knees up as far as he could and planted his boots on the Wraith’s chest and shoved.

The tall body flew back, bouncing off the side mirror of a car, and Lorne got to his feet as fast as he could, ducking the next blow and coming in with a hit to where the solar plexus should be. Again, it was like the Wraith didn’t even notice beyond the sheer physics of Lorne’s fist slowing down its forward motion. The Wraith struck, a backhand that was almost contemptuous, but knocked Lorne into the lane between lines of parked cars. Headlights blinded him momentarily, but Lorne kept his face toward the Wraith, listening for the boots, and then it was there, both hands under his shoulders and throwing him across the trunk of a car. He kicked out again, hitting the Wraith in the face, and the skin moved under his boot, coming away to reveal something that looked greenish gray in the dim light. And there it was, the spiracle slit in the face, an insectoid organ, and there was no doubt.

The Wraith grabbed his foot with one hand and his neck with the other. Impossibly strong, it pinned Lorne against the car hard enough to dent the metal and then let go of his foot and reached the free hand up to its mouth. Its teeth tore at the cuff of the fingerless glove. Lorne struggled, and the Wraith tightened its grip on his throat. Lorne felt the squeeze and the edge of blackness.

Shots from a high-caliber service revolver boomed through the cavernous parking lot. The Wraith jerked, loosened its grip and tightened it again, and then spasmed as three more shots rang out. Letting go of Lorne, it stumbled back, and Lorne heard its bootheels hit the concrete as it ran away. Gasping for breath as he tried to get his vision back, he heard Cadman’s voice shouting his name. She clattered up to the car and stopped next to the hood, aiming toward the footsteps receding into the distance, but she didn’t fire, standing guard over Lorne until the engine of the truck roared off into the traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.

He looked up at Cadman. Gunshot residue was smeared around the barrel of her weapon, and her stance balanced and ready. _She’s magnificent,_ he thought, and it might have been inappropriate and stupid to put it into words, but he didn’t care. She’d just saved his life.

She glanced down. “You okay?”

“I think so.” She reached down to help him up, weapon pointed down and away. “Did you get the plate?”

“No,” she said. “Wonder how far he’ll get with five shots to the torso. Didn’t seem to slow him down at all.”

“I need to call this in,” Lorne said. He had to try.

She looked at him sharply. “And tell them what? That someone took you down and your partner shot him up, all while off duty? Oh, and he drove away?”

Lorne took a breath, trying to deal with the delayed adrenaline. “I didn’t mean the police.”

She holstered her weapon behind her back. “You owe me a drink,” she said. “And an explanation.” Lorne wasn’t sure if he could explain in any way that would satisfy her and not break the NDA he’d signed into a million pieces, but a beer sounded great. He nodded. “I’m driving,” she said.

“Let me make a call first,” he said, pulling out his phone. The emergency number was burned into his brain, and he took a few steps away as he dialed.

“Cheyenne Mountain Complex,” came a male voice on the other end. 

“This is Evan Lorne, formerly of—” he cut himself off before he could say SG22. “Formerly of Deep Space Telemetry. I sent an email to Col. Raimi yesterday and am following up. There’s something the… the Command needs to know.” He was surprised at how much he had to struggle to keep his voice even.

“Something?” the voice said. 

Lorne expected the tone of disbelief. Whoever was on the line had probably heard the scuttlebutt about how he’d left the Stargate program, and that just made this even harder. He wasn’t sure what he could say on an unsecured line, but he figured if he left out words like _galaxy_ and _alien_ it would be okay. “Something from Pegasus. Please alert General O’Neill and Mr. Woolsey.”

There was a long pause, and finally the voice answered, “I’ll pass it along. A visitor from Pegasus in Las Vegas.”

“I’ve seen it,” Lorne said, and took a breath before adding, “and pictures of its food.”

There was another long pause. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Old blue pickup truck. He’s gambling.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lorne. We strongly recommend that you do not pursue.” The line went dead. It felt strange still to be Mr. Lorne and not Major, to know that this Wraith on Earth was the closest he’d ever come to the life he used to have, a life that was almost taken through the feeding mouth on a Wraith’s hand.

Lorne looked over to Cadman. She looked cool and unruffled, and she met his gaze for a long moment.

Then she dropped her eyes and snorted, unladylike. “Deep Space Telemetry, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but her expression was disbelieving. Lorne felt realization climb up his spine, a new layer of emotion on top of what he’d just been through. She hadn’t done anything he would have expected, had barely even wondered aloud how the guy could take five bullets and run away. He recalled that the captain said Cadman had been stationed in Colorado. It was a strange place for a Marine, and an even stranger one for an explosives expert. 

“Pegasus,” she said, and shook her head again, still looking down. “Were you on a—“ she hesitated a second, as if she were removing a word, then finished, “team?”

Lorne didn’t answer right away. The buzz crawling up his spine wrapped all the way around him. How could she know? He met her gaze, and answered her honestly. “Yes.”

She looked up at him now, searching. “Which one?”

“Twenty two.” The number wouldn’t tell her much if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

She nodded, though, and then shrugged. She looked away and said, “How many times?”

“Pardon?”

She looked directly at him again, and he felt pinned. “How many times through the ‘gate?”

She knew. He swallowed. He’d practically had to sign the non-disclosure agreements in blood the first time, and the exit ones were even worse. He could still try to deny he knew what she was talking about. “I don’t know…” he started. 

She cut him off with a look. “Yes you do. Everyone does. How many times?”

Lorne swallowed again. She was right. Everyone knew their own total. “Fifty nine.” He didn’t ask her. Women didn’t go through the gate except when strictly necessary. Captain Carter only went off world when there was tech that couldn’t be moved, but even then they’d preferred to send Dr. Lee, or bring Dr. McKay’s team back from Pegasus.

“So what happened?”

“Unauthorized activation.” She would know what that meant.

“Why?”

“I screwed something up, and I wanted to go fix it.” Lorne swallowed, keeping in the rest of the words. Remembering that was more than he could handle right now, and he kept it in the box 

“Did you succeed?”

“Didn’t even get up the ramp.” She nodded, and he was glad she didn’t ask for details. He had to know how she even knew to ask the questions. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You were stationed there, weren’t you? What was your job?”

“Nothing,” she said flatly. “Not for lack of trying.”

“I don’t understand.”

Cadman cocked her head. “What were your final requirements for joining a team?”

Lorne’s looked away. The mundane answer steadied him a bit. “The usual, marksmanship level, physicals, psych. Sort of like this,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the entire police force, “but tougher.” He ventured a glance at her. “Couldn’t make the physical?” 

Her head was still tilted, and she didn’t move it when she answered. “I could, until they changed the rules. The requirements were set on percentage of body weight for lifting.”

“Like here,” Lorne nodded, but treading carefully. Her stillness spoke of anger.

“And they decided it needed to be the percentage of an average male marine’s body weight, not my own body weight.”

“Oh.” That didn’t seem fair, but he thought he could understand it. Two days ago he couldn’t have imagined her handling the dig-out SG-22 had faced on 377. But the way she’d fired on that Wraith wasn’t anything he would have expected. He reached out on impulse and took her hands, turning them over to sit, palm up, on his, ignoring the fact that hers were trembling slightly. He assumed it was the anger. Or maybe it was his own barely controlled shaking that he felt.

He looked at her hands. Her fingers were neat and fine-boned, the nails short and square but not painted. He ran his thumb across the ridge of gun callous that crossed the edge of her palm. “You know what that was, right?”

Cadman didn’t answer. He glanced up. She was still looking at him from an angle, and when he met her gaze she said, “I got all the introductory briefings before they washed me out. When Sheppard showed us those pictures I recognized the bodies and the, the feeding mark. I tried to call it in. They wouldn’t listen to me.”

“I’m sorry.” It sounded pathetic to his own ears, and he folded his fingers over hers. He knew it was the adrenaline that made him so bold, and he knew better, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was not alone out here. Even if she’d never been through the stargate herself, she knew. 

He hadn’t let himself feel it much, the loss of the galaxy, the loss of feeling like part of something important, more so because it was secret. Lorne felt the cracks forming and tightened his hands around hers.

“Hey,” Cadman said, her voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “If you’re Batman, what does that make me?”

“Girl Wonder,” he said without thinking.

“No way am I the side kick,” she said. “I just saved your ass from a space vampire.”

“Wonder Woman, then.” He snorted a laugh and let go of her hands. She’d hit exactly the right note to keep him from falling apart. “That drink still on offer?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m definitely driving.” 

As they walked to her car, Bradford Cheney appeared. “I heard there was shooting. Do I need to call 911?”

“Nope,” Cadman said, her voice light. “But I would bet Mr. Alligator Blood won’t be back. If he shows up, call me immediately. There are probably going to be people looking for him.”

“So he’s wanted?”

“Yep. In fact, if anyone shows up in a black SUV and wants those security tapes, I suggest you have copies ready to hand over.”

Lorne glanced at Cheney to see how he took that news. The man just nodded. “Will do. Thanks, Laura.”

“G’night, Bradford,” she said, opening her door and nodding to Lorne.

They didn’t talk on the drive. Lorne tried not to think about what had just happened. She took him to a small house in one of the newer suburbs, the yard a xeriscape contrast to the irrigated grass around it. When they pulled into the drive she said, “We can talk here.”

Once inside she handed him a beer, and she sat him on her comfortable couch, curling herself up on a squashy arm chair with a beer of her own. “I’ve signed all the NDAs and I have you in my Lasso of Truth,” she said. “Tell me about the first time you went through the wormhole.”

***

He woke up on the couch in his own apartment, his head aching from more than the beer. His cell phone had woken him, and he checked the time. 06:30. He didn’t recognize the number, but he answered it. When he put it to his face, it hurt, probably a bruise from where the Wraith hit him, so he switched sides. Cadman’s voice said, “Good morning, Batman. Time to get up for work.”

Lorne grunted at her, but then said, “Thanks for getting me home.”

“Well, I’m going to have to get you to work, too. Your car is still at the Flying Horse. Pick you up at seven.” She hung up before he could answer. She sounded entirely too awake, and knowing her, she’d probably been for a run already. He started coffee and got himself into the shower. He’d had four beers last night to Cadman’s one, but he hadn’t been the only one talking. Three beers in he’d asked her why the hell she’d joined the Marines, made an ass of himself apologizing for asking, then topped off the True Confessions Hour with a bunch of stuff he wished he couldn’t remember having said.

Or having lived through, for that matter, not just the war stories and the funny alien stories but the darker things, too. She’d nodded and grinned and occasionally laughed out loud, and most of the way through his fourth beer he’d told her what he’d seen in her as she stood over what should have been his corpse, how beautiful she was and just how awesome it was to watch her shoot a space vampire. 

“I’ve never known a woman like you.” 

Her answer to that was to roll her eyes. “You’ve reached the _I love you, little fucker_ stage of being drunk. We’ll take this up when you’re sober. Time to get you home.”

He’d kept himself silent on the drive, thanking her when she stopped in front of his apartment, and collapsing on the couch when he got inside. Now, with the shower water hitting his face and pricking the bruise, he wondered what he was going to do when she arrived. She’d probably want him reassigned. He mentally kicked himself. If he hadn’t said that stupid crap, he might have had a chance with her. Having met her, he wasn’t sure he would ever want anything less than Wonder Woman.

He saw the bruise on his face when he stepped out of the shower, and another set circling his neck. This wasn’t going to be fun to explain at work. He had started drying himself when he heard a knock at his door. It was only 06:45, but he pulled on undershorts and jeans and went to the door. A man in a suit stood on the other side of the peephole, two Air Force uniforms flanking him. 

He recognized the suit and reached for the handle, aware of being half dressed. If they were going to come this early, screw ‘em. He opened the door. “Mr. Woolsey.”

“Ma--, ah, Mr. Lorne. May we come in?”

“Sure.” Lorne stood aside and let them in. Old habits died hard, and his place was neat enough. “Coffee’s fresh. Can I get you some?”

“I’ve had plenty this morning, thank you,” Woolsey said. Lorne glanced at the two uniforms. They were airmen, probably body guards Lorne didn’t recognize them and they barely acknowledged he was there. 

“You won’t mind if I do?” he said, glancing down at his bare chest. Woolsey raised a hand as if giving permission. “Please, have a seat,” Lorne said, and went to his room to grab a shirt.

When he came back to the living room, Mr. Woolsey was perched on the edge of his chair, and the officers stood by the door. Lorne took a sip of his coffee and sat down. “How can I help you?”

“We understand you had an encounter with a Wraith last night.” Woolsey gestured at Lorne’s face. “I’m glad to see you survived.”

“Flying Horse Casino should have copies of their surveillance tapes for you.”

“Ah. Thank you. We’d also like to hear how you encountered this Wraith.”

Lorne’s cell phone rang. It was the same number than had woken him up. “Excuse me,” he said, and answered.

“Come on down, Batman. Time to go to work,” Cadman’s voice said.

“I think maybe you should come up here,” he said.

“No dice,” she said. “I said we’d take it up when you were sober, but we should probably take it up when you’re not my trainee.”

It took Lorne a second to realize what she meant, but he put aside the happy jump in his chest. “I hear you, but that’s not it. You see any black SUVs down there?”

“You mean the ones badly parked with men in black?”

“Bingo.”

“Well, damn. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Woolsey spoke up. “Is that Detective Cadman? Please ask her to join us.”

Lorne heard one of the airmen on his radio. “Come up,” he said, “or they’ll bring you up, I think.”

They waited until Cadman knocked on the door. Lorne stood, and so did Woolsey, as one of the airmen opened it. “Coffee?” Lorne said.

“I’m going to need it, I think. One—”

“One sugar, milk,” Lorne said, and walked to the kitchen.

Behind him he heard Mr. Woolsey saying, “Detective Cadman. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Richard Woolsey,” she said. “I watched your orientation videos.”

Lorne came back with Cadman’s coffee. Woolsey was still standing. Cadman’s back was straight and tense.

“Ah. Yes.” Woolsey said. Lorne handed the coffee over and sat on the couch, leaving the second chair for Cadman. When they were seated Woolsey said, “Please go over the events of last night for me.”

They told the story tag-team, from the pictures on Detective Sheppard’s desk through the poker game, and Lorne realizing that the Wraith was acting on tells Lorne hadn’t yet seen. They ended the story with the truck driving away.

“Five shots?” Woolsey mused. “He’ll have to have fed last night.”

“Another corpse for Sheppard to find,” Cadman said. “You going to read him in on this?”

Woolsey looked at her sharply. “We will start our search for the blue pickup truck and a Goth-dressed poker player, and send in our own personnel to examine the next body. I hardly think bringing in someone with his background…” he started.

“Our backgrounds aren’t so great,” Lorne said.

Cadman looked at him. “Speak for yourself.”

Woolsey looked pained. “Of course, this encounter has brought up some interesting internal questions about your status.”

“Discharged.”

“Resigned.”

They spoke at the same time, then glanced at each other. Cadman said, “I don’t see what that has to do with anything, other than the fact that we’re already NDA’ed within an inch of our lives.”

“I have been asked to mention that your status could be re-considered. We could use you both in Pegasus.”

Lorne couldn’t speak. To have it back? To go to another galaxy? He was about to say yes when Cadman said, “We’ll take that under advisement.” There was ice in her voice. “Now, if you’re quite done with us, would you mind helping us explain to our captains why we’re an hour late for muster?”

“I, um, already implied that the FBI needed to interview you both. He thought it was about a traffic stop a couple of days ago?” 

Woolsey looked as if he wanted an explanation, but Lorne glanced at Cadman. Her lips were pressed tight. Lorne said, “How long did you say the FBI would need us?”

“I didn’t. I’m sure you can arrive at work whenever it suits you today.” He rose and Lorne did too. Woolsey handed him a card. “Please call me if you reconsider. There are other avenues besides the American military, and we do have certain influence there, as well.” He walked to the door, and one of the airmen opened it. Woolsey turned back. “If you’re approached by anyone else, please call me.”

When the door closed behind them, Lorne looked down at Cadman. She had her hands between her knees, not moving. Facing the Wraith she had been cool and collected. How had Woolsey’s offer wound her up like this? He knelt in front of her. “You okay?”

“Do you want to go back?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“It’s really that worth it?”

Lorne’s answer was more heartfelt than anything he’d ever said before. “It really is.”

She looked up at that, and he took the risk of reaching for her hands again. He ventured her first name. “Laura.”

“What? You’ll go, and they say they’ll take me, but they’ll stick me behind some damn desk somewhere. And…” She looked down again.

“And what?” he asked.

She took one of her hands from his, and laid it on his cheek. “I had hopes for when you’re not my trainee…” she started.

Lorne froze momentarily, then reached for her hand that was on his cheek, holding both of hers to his lips, but not kissing. “Wonder Woman.”

“Batman,” she said. “I always thought those two should have a thing.”

“If I go,” he started.

“Of course you’re going to go.” She tried to pull her hands away, but he gripped them more tightly and she relaxed.

“Pegasus is different,” he said. “The leader of their biggest ally is a woman. Plus they’ve got McKay as their exec, and he hates everybody equally. If they send you, they won’t waste you behind a desk.”

“Frat regs,” she said.

“Different services,” he countered.

“Or civilian, even,” she said, as if warming to the idea.

“You’re wasted here,” Lorne said.

“So are you.”

Lorne let go of her hands and reached for her face. She put a hand on his cheek and they both leaned in, their lips meeting softly. Lorne felt like his chest was opening, heart bigger than his body. He kissed her again, and she answered, strong, asking him to open up as much as she had. When she leaned back to breathe, she traced her fingers over the bruises on his neck and said, “You want to be really late for work?”

***

Lorne dozed, his body more relaxed than he’d been probably in years. Laura stirred beside him, and he kissed the top of her head, nosing into her hair. “Hey, Wonder Woman.”

She slid out of his arms without a word, and he worried for a moment that he’d done something wrong, but she came back a moment later, something in her hand. She crawled onto the bed and slung her leg over so that she was sitting on him. He slid his hands up her thighs and looked up at her tousled hair, the muscles that moved under her sleek curves. 

She smiled down at him, holding up Woolsey’s card. “Let’s go kill monsters.”


End file.
